The week ahead in Europe promises a flood of market moving news from major economies across the continent and further afield, in addition to a raft of corporate earnings updates from some of the region's biggest companies.

The economic calendar is busiest in the U.K, which will see unemployment, inflation and retail sales data for September, providing further insight into the health of the economy following the Brexit vote in June.

But investors will also watch the European Central Bank's latest monetary policy decision and press conference closely, as markets await news of whether or not the bank will extend its quantitative easing program beyond the March 2017 deadline.

In addition, investors will also wait with baited breath for the passing of Chinese third quarter GDP figures, which are due at 10.00 pm on Tuesday, particularly after recent trade data that showed exports and imports tumbling during September.

U.K. inflation numbers are due out in the early hours of Tuesday morning and should provide insight into the extent that a devalued sterling has been able to influence consumer prices during the early days since the Brexit vote. The Factset consensus suggests headline consumer prices accelerated to 0.8% in September from o from 0.6% in August.

This is followed by labor market data in the early hours of Wednesday and retail sales the following day.

The consensus is for unemployment to have remained steady at 4.9% during the three months to the end of August and for average earnings (ex bonuses) to have risen at a rate of 2.1% during the three months to the end of August. The forecast for retail sales suggests that month-on-month same store sales were 0.2% higher during September and 4.5% higher on the same period one year ago.

In Europe, final HICP inflation numbers are expected to go unrevised from the flash 0.4% year-on-year headline print and the 0.8% core reading when released Monday.

On Thursday in Frankfurt, Mario Draghi and his Governing Council colleagues will announce the latest interest rate decision for the euro area, followed by a press conference during which investors will listen for clues as to future moves in the monetary policy sphere.

Expectations are for the bank to stand pat in October, once again, with an extension to its bond buying program seen as most likely to come in December.

As it stands, the ECB's €1.1 trillion ($1.2 trillion) QE program is set to run until March 2017, although markets expect this to be extended to run until at least September 2017.

But the ECB will be pushed to answer questions around how much longer it can realistically expect to be able to buy European bonds for, given its self-imposed restrictions on the purchase of negative yielding assets and the proportion of a nation's debt stock that it is willing to own.

In the corporate world some of the continent's largest companies will provide trading updates to investors, mostly from the U.K. and France.

Investors will be keen to see whether Burberry's recent trading performance has matched up with that of fellow luxury goods firm, LVMH (LVMHF) , who reported strong like-for-like growth in its most recent quarter and for the first nine months of the year.

BHP Billiton stockholders will doubtless be keen to hear whether or not the nascent recovery in many industrial commodity prices has made its way through to the group's bottom line.

In France, beverages giant Remy Cointreau (REMYF) will report second quarter sales figures to the market, also on Tuesday.

Remy, the owner of the Remy Martin cognac brand, will come under close scrutiny from investors, who will be keen to know whether a slowdown of spirits sales among U.S. wholesalers has abated and whether cognac sales have held up as well as they did in recent periods. Pernod Ricard (PDRDY) will face the same scrutiny later in the week, on Thursday.

On Wednesday, French aerospace and defence firm Thales SA (THLEY) will announce third quarter sales while, over in the U.K. construction materials merchant Travis Perkins (TVPKF) will also update the market.

Both will provide a read across into the current health of key sectors in the U.K. and French economies.

Consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser (RBGLY) will report from London on Thursday, also third quarter numbers, which investors will watch for signs of upgrades to the management outlook for earnings and cash flows given sterling's devaluation and Reckitt's large streams of foreign currency revenues.

On Thursday, the London Stock Exchange (LDNXF) will update deliver third quarter results to investors and no doubt, an update on its planned merger with Deutsche Boerse (DBOEY) - which is currently subject to an in depth investigation by competition regulators.